Verbose logging is a computer logging mode that records, during software installation for example, more information than a standard logging mode. (For example, verbose means “using more words than necessary”.) Verbose logging options are usually enabled for troubleshooting because they create large detailed log files, however, they can also slow down a computer's performance.
In conventional systems, when errors are encountered during a software program's installation in which verbose logging is not enabled, a user, running a setup program installing the software program, must re-run the setup program. Before the re-run, however, the user must set a verbose logging mode in the setup program. During the re-run, the user must encounter the same error as during the first run to get a useful log file (now with verbose logging enabled) in order to understand the error's cause.
In other conventional systems, a setup controller, associated with a setup program installing a software program, writes a registry key on any error. This is done so that the next time the setup program runs, the error can be detected based on the written registry key. In this way, during the setup program's second run, the setup program may log verbosely for the entire software program installation.
Accordingly, the conventional strategy is to wait and see if an error occurs when running a setup program installing a software program. If an error occurs, then the setup program is run again with verbose logging set during the second run. This often causes problems because the conventional strategy requires the setup program to run twice and for the user to manually set verbose logging. Great inefficiencies occur with the conventional strategy at least due to the time required for the setup program installing the software program to run twice.